If you are a first year, welcome to UChicago and best of luck starting off on your exciting journey through academia! For the rest of you, we hope your experiments are staying as strong as your indomitable spirits.

While generating data is always a priority, the UCBA invites you to take some time to focus on professional development. We would like to extend an invitation to all BSD Graduate Students to the UCBA Recruitment Social, taking place Thursday, November 16th at 5:00 PM in GCIS W301/303.

This event will be an opportunity to network with your fellow Ph.D. students and other like-minded students while getting a chance to meet the UCBA and other graduate student career development organizations including the Gargoyle Consulting Club. It is never too early to start making connections and self-branding, and we strongly encourage first and second years to attend.

So come on by after work for some snacks and drinks and learn about the exciting activities UCBA has planned for this year.

The Polsky Center is now recruiting for their 2018/2019 Innovation Fund Associates program!

The University of Chicago Innovation Fund Associates (IFA) is an interdisciplinary group of 20 students and post-docs that aid the Innovation Fund in its Spring and Fall investment cycles. Associates act as venture capital associates, performing due diligence on innovative ventures coming out of the University of Chicago ecosystem.

The IFA program is structured as an apprenticeship, where associates learn-by-doing as part of an interdisciplinary team. Associates deep dive into one investment opportunity per cycle and get a close-up look at the commercialization process and what it takes to move a technology from the lab into the real world.

Alums of the IFA program serve as a critical pool of talent for the Innovation Fund throughout the year. In the past, outstanding IFA alums have been paired with faculty to spin out new ventures, placed with VC funds in our network, and worked on strategic projects for the fund.

Students and Post-Docs at the University of Chicago and their affiliate institutions (Argonne National Laboratory, FermiLab, the Maine Biological Laboratory) are encouraged to apply.